Loveland Planning Commission supports apartment complex

If City Council approves, the new complex at Eisenhower and Denver could have 240 to 368 units

By Craig Young Reporter-Herald Staff Writer

Posted:
06/23/2014 09:46:29 PM MDT

The Loveland Planning Commission on Monday night unanimously recommended approval for a change to the concept master plan for a 57-acre site northeast of Denver Avenue and East Eisenhower Boulevard, shown here Monday, near where a temporary fireworks stand goes up every summer. If approved by the City Council, the change would allow an apartment complex with 240 to 368 units at the northeast corner of the property. (Jenny Sparks / Loveland Reporter-Herald)

LOVELAND -- A plan to build as many as 368 apartments northeast of Eisenhower Boulevard and Denver Avenue sailed through the Loveland Planning Commission on Monday night.

The developer, Loveland Eisenhower Investments Corp., requested an amendment to a 2009 concept master plan that designated development of the 57-acre parcel of open land for employment and retail but didn't mention residential.

Greg Parker, a principal with Loveland Eisenhower Investments, said the property's owners originally planned to have land ready to develop for companies that wanted to bring their jobs to Loveland, but they have had no takers.

"So we have a challenge," Parker said. "It would take about $13.8 million of infrastructure costs to develop this property."

Much of that cost would come in the form of improvements to Eisenhower Boulevard, Mountain Lion Drive and Sculptor Drive, he said.

But without commercial users to pay for those improvements, the developer wants to build apartments, which are in high demand in Loveland and would provide the financing for the infrastructure work.

Parker said partner M. Timm Development Inc., a Santa Barbara, Calif., company, has hundreds of apartments in Northern Colorado, including the 104-unit Thompson Valley Apartments complex on Southwest 10th Street in Loveland.

The partners would own and operate the new complex, which could break ground in the next nine months, Parker said, and be ready for its first residents about two years from now.

The developers would put the three-story apartment buildings in the northeast corner of the property, away from Eisenhower and Denver, and designate the rest of the area for the workplace and retail uses.

Each of the seven Planning Commission members present at the meeting expressed support for the change, and they voted unanimously to recommend that the City Council approve the project.

The council could take up the issue in late July or early August.

"We think we can start building these apartments shortly," Parker said. "It would allow us to pay for a lot of the infrastructure, which would in turn allow us to have shovel-ready property ready for future development when the market comes back."

Loveland's apartment vacancy rate stands at 2.3 percent, one of the tightest in the state, with average rents of $1,026.

The developer has said apartments would rent in the $1,100 to $1,200 range.

Commission member Michele Forrest thanked Parker for adding more living units in Loveland to help ease the shortage.

"I like the overall concept to bring more apartment housing closer to the downtown area," she said, "to bring a little bit more buzz, a collection of people, down there."

John Ellison, one of the two Allendale subdivision residents who spoke to the commission, wondered whether the residents of the new apartments would be using the small park in his neighborhood, and he asked if the developer had information about whether traffic noise would increase as a result of the development.

Parker said the 368-unit option would have two recreational clubhouses and two pools, and the 240-unit option would have one clubhouse and one pool, and both plans incorporate plentiful open space, so residents wouldn't need to use the neighborhood park.

In answer to the traffic noise question, he said including a residential component in the development would actually generate less traffic than the original all-commercial plan, and he said the three-story buildings between the existing houses and Eisenhower would absorb some of the street noise.